Kiki's. GX1, Leitz Summaron 35mm.

I thought of Kiki's for today's Blip because it was such a gray and raw day and I remembered that their signs are bright red. Just the thing to liven up the dreariness.

Boston is an Irish town: Fully 20% of the population is either of Irish heritage or directly from the Emerald Isle. Some neighborhoods, until fairly recently have been enclaves where other population groups were strongly discouraged, violently if necessary, from trying to move there. That has changed for the better. No surprise then that our neighborhood, still heavily Irish working class, but diluted with Orthodox Jews, Muslims, students and who knows how many Asian ethnicities, has stores that cater to the culinary tastes of those that miss their spiritual homeland. Kiki’s is such a place, just down the hill from our home. It is a small, local supermarket, a “superette”, which has several aisles devoted entirely to goods that are familiar to not only the Irish, but watered-down British colonials like myself. I go there for the Marmite, the best price in town! But also, I work with an elderly lady from County Cork, and to save her the 52 mile round trip hike into the city, I call her up, get the goodies she wants and take them into work for her. So I stocked up on Marmite, did my good deed, and got a Blip out of it. By the way, did I mention that Kiki’s is owned by Greeks…?